“Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:24,25)

An unbeliever’s approach to marriage and relationships goes something like this: “I married her, but two years later, I realized that I had married the wrong one. We divorced. I looked again for the right one and married her. A year later, I realized that she wasn’t the right one, either. We divorced. I looked again for the right one and married her. Six months later, I realized…” Get the picture?  With such a mindset, finding the right person is huge.  Being the right person isn’t.

God’s Word insists on the opposite approach. An obsession with finding the right person is nowhere to be found among the righteous in Scripture. Instruction on being the right person is found on nearly every page. The two verses that introduce this devotional illustrate being versus finding. Paul the Apostle doesn’t instruct women to find a husband who meets certain guidelines. He instructs a woman to be the kind of person who honors Christ. In the case of Ephesians 5:24, honoring Christ comes through the wife’s subjection to her own husband. Likewise, Paul doesn’t instruct men to find a wife who meets certain guidelines. He instructs a man to be the kind of person who honors Christ. In the case of 5:25, honoring Christ comes through the husband’s love for his wife.  It’s no surprise that such a wife is Christlike when she follows 5:24 and that such a husband is Christlike when he follows 5:25.

Make no mistake: God’s Word doesn’t urge men or women to be reckless. If a woman sees that a man won’t repent of sin practiced long term, she would be wise to avoid marrying him. If a man sees that a woman won’t repent of sin practiced long term, he would be wise to avoid marrying her. They must not be, however, bogged down in a relentless pursuit of “the right one,” worried sick that they might miss him or her from failure to have pursued diligently enough.

The relentless diligence should be on being the right one, not on finding the right one. Then and only then can one say that he or she is walking “by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Finding is all about sight; being is all about faith.